From "One Mile at a Time" : https://onemileatatime.com/report-air-b ... quidation/

Quote:
"Well, it looks like there’s some bad news for Air Belgium. L’Echo is reporting that the company is having an emergency general meeting this afternoon to decide whether to dissolve or not. Ironically just yesterday Air Belgium and HNCA had a signing ceremony, presumably regarding upcoming service to mainland China."

The source article from "L'Echo" can be found here (French only): https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/aviati ... 60389.html

No further updates as of yet, but it would be a shame to see another airline go under, following Primera Air and Cobalt Air. I had personally hoped that Air Belgium would find some success, but it seems that the situation at the company is worse than we thought.

BA will need a plan B for their lease requirements...

Saw this update:
https://newsroom.aviator.aero/air-belgi ... ting-down/

Seems like they're staying on for now, but things are definitely not looking rosy at all.

Their whole business plan was a mess to begin with anyway.

CarbonFibre wrote:

BA will need a plan B for their lease requirements...

Since they only lease one plane, I don't see this as a serious issue for BA.

zakuivcustom wrote:

Their whole business plan was a mess to begin with anyway.

This. It is crazy to begin with. What were they thinking, One A340 from China to Belgium? Looks more like a boy's dream coming true, than a serious investment proposal. I wish them the best of luck, but I would say it is doomed, unless they just going for the wet lease route and even then.

Airbus could be who decides to pull the plug as they own the Air Belgium fleet. If they go bust, might LH be interested in newer A343s to expand Eurowings? These were the fifth through second to last A343s built.

Primera, Cobalt, Small Planet getting even a "smaller Planet", Air Belgium....

Who's next?

If Eurowings eventually merges with Brussels, who knows if this A343 ends up operating long-haul flights to Asia from Belgium anyway. On wealthier hands though.

You can add Azur Air Germany to that list of defunct airlines...

Dutchy wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

Their whole business plan was a mess to begin with anyway.

This. It is crazy to begin with. What were they thinking, One A340 from China to Belgium? Looks more like a boy's dream coming true, than a serious investment proposal. I wish them the best of luck, but I would say it is doomed, unless they just going for the wet lease route and even then.

I wouldn't be so critical. So far as I understand it, the operation was established on the basis of receiving a guaranteed number of block bookings from a Chinese tour operator ex. HKG, essentially making these services scheduled charters and (in theory) guaranteeing a sizeable amount of revenue. For reasons I am not familiar with, the level of expected (contracted) bookings was not realised and nor was the expected revenue, which compromised their position.

Diversifying into the ACMI market makes sense, the A343 has very low outright acquisition/lease costs. They've landed a few major contracts, so clearly there is confidence in their abilities and proposition, so I'm glad they haven't thrown in the towel - earlier today I was really wondering if they'd make it.

a350lover wrote:

Primera, Cobalt, Small Planet getting even a "smaller Planet", Air Belgium....

Who's next?

If Eurowings eventually merges with Brussels, who knows if this A343 ends up operating long-haul flights to Asia from Belgium anyway. On wealthier hands though.

The European air market has been over saturated for decades.

Chickens coming home to roost..

PlymSpotter wrote:

Dutchy wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

Their whole business plan was a mess to begin with anyway.

This. It is crazy to begin with. What were they thinking, One A340 from China to Belgium? Looks more like a boy's dream coming true, than a serious investment proposal. I wish them the best of luck, but I would say it is doomed, unless they just going for the wet lease route and even then.

I wouldn't be so critical. So far as I understand it, the operation was established on the basis of receiving a guaranteed number of block bookings from a Chinese tour operator ex. HKG, essentially making these services scheduled charters and (in theory) guaranteeing a sizeable amount of revenue. For reasons I am not familiar with, the level of expected (contracted) bookings was not realised and nor was the expected revenue, which compromised their position.

Diversifying into the ACMI market makes sense, the A343 has very low outright acquisition/lease costs. They've landed a few major contracts, so clearly there is confidence in their abilities and proposition, so I'm glad they haven't thrown in the towel - earlier today I was really wondering if they'd make it.

To me, starting an airline based on some Chinese tour operator (U-Tour) that you can't really find any information on is messy enough. Yes, Chinese tourists are everywhere and many of them goes to various places on those duckling tour groups. Many of those tour operators are also IMHO very shady, advertised some insanely low tour price (Including some tour that literally cost, well, 0 yuan, google "zero-dollar tour" if you want to know the details), and in this case, seems to me making "promised amount of tourist" that never really came, along with AB getting totally squeezed by the tour operator to begin with.

Ultimately, that's what happen when AB threw everything into a single pot, went "all-in", and failed. They can recover via the ACMI market, but their future is still bleak.

Europe is smaller than USA and has 10x more airlines. The MOL prediction that Europe will just be Easyjet, Ryanair, Lufthansa group, IAG and Air france-KLM. Seriously, it will happen. When the European public realise that being born on a different piece of rock doesnt mean anything, the united states of Europe could happen.

Samrnpage wrote:

Europe is smaller than USA and has 10x more airlines. The MOL prediction that Europe will just be Easyjet, Ryanair, Lufthansa group, IAG and Air france-KLM. Seriously, it will happen. When the European public realise that being born on a different piece of rock doesnt mean anything, the united states of Europe could happen.

You should come visit planet Earth one day.
You win the internet for today. Well done.

In other news, the UK (yes including NI) is leaving the EU, Hungary are threatening to deploy troops to stop sub Saharan migration and Italy just had their budget rejected by the Commision. Don’t hold your breath just yet.

There is no European public as you describe.

Don't forget many of those airlines are (were?) competing with competent rail service too. Additionally, it seems the airlines that went under were ones that were based almost solely on leisure travel. Maybe people's ability or desire to pay for leisure travel has peaked and will start a downward trend. Let's see what happens next.

hz747300 wrote:

Don't forget many of those airlines are (were?) competing with competent rail service too. Additionally, it seems the airlines that went under were ones that were based almost solely on leisure travel. Maybe people's ability or desire to pay for leisure travel has peaked and will start a downward trend. Let's see what happens next.

Very few of the defunct airlines had direct rail competition, other than Air Berlin, because the airport pairs they served didn't have direct rail connections with each other. European rail networks do make it easier to use flights from/to alternative airports though.

Part of the problem with small European leisure airlines is that their model requires intensive use of what are often middle-aged planes on their third or fourth owner. The EC261 consumer protection regulations work out expensive for such airlines when a plane goes tech and there is not enough slack in the schedules to catch up the delays once it is fixed, resulting in lots and lots of duty of care costs and compensation claims.

KLDC10 wrote:

From "One Mile at a Time" : https://onemileatatime.com/report-air-b ... quidation/

Quote:
"Well, it looks like there’s some bad news for Air Belgium. L’Echo is reporting that the company is having an emergency general meeting this afternoon to decide whether to dissolve or not. Ironically just yesterday Air Belgium and HNCA had a signing ceremony, presumably regarding upcoming service to mainland China."

The source article from "L'Echo" can be found here (French only): https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/aviati ... 60389.html

No further updates as of yet, but it would be a shame to see another airline go under, following Primera Air and Cobalt Air. I had personally hoped that Air Belgium would find some success, but it seems that the situation at the company is worse than we thought.

The original article from L'Echo has been significantly edited and updated to state, among other things, the emergency general meeting had been on the calendar for six months, as it turns out.

Dutchy wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

Their whole business plan was a mess to begin with anyway.

This. It is crazy to begin with. What were they thinking, One A340 from China to Belgium? Looks more like a boy's dream coming true, than a serious investment proposal. I wish them the best of luck, but I would say it is doomed, unless they just going for the wet lease route and even then.

Voila'!

Samrnpage wrote:

Europe is smaller than USA and has 10x more airlines. The MOL prediction that Europe will just be Easyjet, Ryanair, Lufthansa group, IAG and Air france-KLM. Seriously, it will happen. When the European public realise that being born on a different piece of rock doesnt mean anything, the united states of Europe could happen.

I think you might actually need a reality check, and get your school books out too.

And comparing one large country to a cluster of smaller but significantly wealthy countries with strongly differing economies, political systems, geographies, populations, languages and specific connection needs means absolutely nothing....

And BTW, the USA is really not the benchmark anything should be measured against, really..

Hows AB doing?

Arion640 wrote:

Hows AB doing?

Some lease agrement with LOT / AF or BA... and back to China from Brussels South Charleroi 3 flights a week end of march. We will see !

Air who?

KICT wrote:

Air who?

Air Belgium ( KF)